Santorum strikes a calmer tone

Iowa performance has him among top GOP hopefuls.

By Mark Leibovich, New York Times :
January 6, 2012

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Rick Santorum loves professional wrestling, and has been thrilled to meet such savage icons of the squared circle as Bruno Sammartino, Gorilla Monsoon and Hulk Hogan. He even lobbied for World Wrestling Entertainment for a while.

When the former Pennsylvania senator was seeking re-election in 2006, he appeared in a campaign ad standing in a ring surrounded by pugilists trading eye gouges, pile drivers and body slams.

“It makes more sense to wrestle with America's problems than with each other,” the candidate said.

That ad, though, concludes with him decking a wrestler with an elbow smash, a move that illustrates Santorum's no-holds-barred political style.

People in both parties over the years have accused him of hot-headed name calling, reliance on immature antics and attempts to reduce politics to steel-cage matches between people cast as heroes or heels.

“He would attack people in a smug way that was harder-edged and more insulting than was necessary, said Mark Salter, the former chief of staff to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.“He was a bully who was not a potent enough force to be a bully.”

From the start of a legislative career that involved two terms in the House and Senate, Santorum earned a reputation for throwing haymakers. And in seeking his party's presidential nomination, he was eight votes out of first place in Iowa on Tuesday, Santorum still knows how to throw fists, as evidenced by a donnybrook Thursday with a group of College Republicans in Concord, N.H., in which he seemed to draw a parallel between gay marriage and polygamy.

At other appearances, Santorum has regularly cast President Barack Obama as “a president who has done more to divide this country than any president in recent history.”

But in general, Santorum has tried to be more conciliatory in this campaign. He has not attacked GOP rivals in debates or campaign ads, he said — mostly true, though he has had almost no money to purchase any of the latter.

He has spoken of working with Democrats in the Senate and winning election in Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania. He urged compromise when possible.

“The American people expect us to act like adults,” he said at a campaign stop in Boone, Iowa, on Monday, “not spoiled children.”

Former colleagues from his years in Washington, though, still remember his belligerence.

One of Santorum's first acts in the Senate was to attack Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., for opposing a balanced-budget amendment that Santorum advocated, even suggesting the veteran lawmaker be sacked as chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

As a senator, Santorum bemoaned the lack of statesmanship in the chamber, which many of his colleagues found particularly rich given his own decorum-busting rhetoric.

He acquired the nickname Sen. Slash, which also could work as a pro wrestling character.

“Rick does tend to take on issues that are controversial with passion and enthusiasm and that might turn people off,” said former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, who supports Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination but describes Santorum as a close friend.

He said he watched Santorum closely in Iowa and that he had become more measured.